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So Liza took down her cloak, tied the ribbons of her bonnet about her plump cheeks, and set out over the dale almost immediately the funeral party turned the end of the lonnin. The little creature tripped along jauntily enough, with a large sense of her personal consequence to the enterprises afoot, but without an absorbing sentiment of the gravity of the occurrences that gave rise to them.
The discovery of the clothes and the patches of blood right in the middle of the lonnin was indicative of a foul murder having taken place, and the bodies dragged along the grass to some place of concealment.
Rotha stood at the end of the lonnin, where the lane to Shoulthwaite joined the pack-horse road. She was wrapped in a long woollen cloak having a hood that fell deep over her face. Her father had parted from her half an hour ago, and though the darkness had in a moment hidden him from her sight, she had continued to stand on the spot at which he had left her.
"And Laddie there, when he barks down the lonnin haven't you seen her then her breast heaving, the fingers of that hand of hers twitching, and the mumble of her poor lost voice, as though she'd say, 'Come, Rotha, my lass, be quick with the supper he's here, my lass, he's back?" "I think you must be right in that, Rotha that she misses Ralph," said Willy.
Rotha was walking hurriedly down the lonnin that led from the house on the Moss. Laddie, the collie, had attached himself to her since Ralph's departure, and now he was running by her side. She was on her way to Fornside, but on no errand of which she was conscious. Willy Ray had not yet returned. Her father had not come back from his long journey. Where was Willy? Where was her father?
In another moment Liza was running at her utmost speed down the lonnin. When she reached the road, the little woman turned towards Wythburn. Never pausing for an instant, she ran on and on, passing sundry groups of the country folks, and rarely waiting to exchange more than the scant civilities of a hasty greeting.
"Shaf! dost thoo think yon fell's like a blind lonnin?" said Matthew. "Nay, but it's a bent place," continued Mr. Jackson. "How it dizzied and dozzled, too! And what a fratch yon was! My word! but Ralph did ding them over, both of them!" "He favors his father, does Ralph," said Matthew. "Ey! he's his father's awn git," chimed Reuben. "But that Joe Garth is a merry-begot, I'll swear."
"How did you come in at the back, lad? Do you not come up the lonnin?" "I thought I'd go round by the low meadow and see all safe, and then the nearest way home was on the hill side, you know." Willy and Rotha glanced simultaneously at Ralph as he said this, but they found nothing in his face, voice, or manner to indicate that his words were intended to conceal the truth.
Rotha stood perplexed, and looked after her as she disappeared down the lonnin. Liza burst into a prolonged fit of uproarious laughter. "Hush, Liza; I'm afraid she means mischief." "The old witch-wife!" cried Liza. "If tempers were up at the Lion for sale, what a fortune yon woman's would fetch!" Rotha's apprehension of mischief, either as a result of Mrs.
At length Willy got up and put on his hat. He would go down the lonnin to where it joined the road, and meet Ralph on the way. He would have done so before, but the horror of walking under the shadow of the trees where last night his father fell had restrained him. Conquering his fear, he sallied out. The late moon had risen, and was shining at full.
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